I unzip my duffel and take out the only possession I have from my father, a pearl-handled, 9mm Ruger. Simon gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday, and when he told me my father would’ve wanted me to have it, I knew he was a liar. My father would’ve never wanted me to need a gun. After they took my older brother, he took us off the grid. We lived on the coast for easy escape, and he didn’t like using electricity or having any kind of “locating services” like the Internet or phones. We had a root cellar and a garden, goats and chickens, and everything we owned, we either made or harvested. We
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